Love Within Death
by LoveKittyPaw
Summary: Christian gets turned into a vampire one night while walking the dark streets of Monmartre. To save Satine, he turns her too. Please read and review!
1. Chapter One

Love Within Death  
  
  
  
by :  
  
  
  
Celeny  
  
  
  
Christian wandered the pale grime coated streets of Monmarte. Soot blew into his face mixed with the  
  
  
  
quickly cooling air, leaving a dark chilly residue. His hands were shoved in the worn and threadbare  
  
  
  
pockets of his old black coat, hoping that the confinement of the fabric and his failing body heat would  
  
  
  
somehow warm them. His brown hair fell into his down turned face in sporadic windblown patches,  
  
  
  
juxtaposing sharply with his cream like waxen skin tone. Prostitutes hovered in the duskiness of seemingly  
  
  
  
endless alleyways, their heavy makeup setting their night tinted faces ablaze, almost spectral phantoms  
  
  
  
that haunted the dusky hours before dawn. Christian continued through the narrow avenues unbothered,  
  
  
  
his shoes not even clicking against the dirty cobblestones as he silently wandered. The women who  
  
  
  
watched him through the comforting cloaks of shadow were too fearful to approach this man. There was  
  
  
  
something inhuman about the way he walked, how his legs seemed not to move at all, and how his  
  
  
  
colorless skin gave off a brilliant lustrous sheen that wasn't dampened by the lack of light. And his eyes, in  
  
  
  
those rare moments that he glanced up from the blackened floor, gleamed out from his bloodless face like  
  
  
  
twin jade beacons, incandescent in their unearthly radiance. Just watching him stride sadly through the  
  
  
  
roads left an involuntary shiver to shake their shoulders, and a certainty burned into their minds.  
  
  
  
Whatever this creature was, it was not human. 


	2. Chapter Two

Christian stared at his chapped ashen hands, still amazed at how smooth and seamless  
  
they were, like snowy satin wrapped around his bones. How much his beloved Monmarte  
  
had stayed the same! Though bohemians no longer wandered the dark bars, now lit  
  
internally from the fluorescent and neon lights of television sets, the rich men that did  
  
infest the area seemed like ghosts still caught in the web of the turn of the century. Even  
  
the Moulin Rouge still stood, its garnet bulbs still swinging across the night sky leaving a  
  
bittersweet stain on the inky dimness. Christian let himself stare at the mill until his  
  
vision was bleached red, nothing but the swinging cherry lights that clung to hazy stars.  
  
Even now he debated over what he had selfishly done, what had seemed so morally  
  
wrong, to turn his rose haired angel into a demon. He let his head drop back onto the firm  
  
brick wall of the building behind him, and memories of what had been flood his  
  
consciousness.....  
  
  
  
Monmarte, 1899  
  
Christian's head was filled with thoughts of Satine as he walked through the dirty streets  
  
of Paris. The way her flaming hair hung past her shoulders in sloping curls, her milky  
  
skin glowing as a heated blush crept into her round cheeks, her cobalt eyes sparkling, and  
  
her coral lips tugged upwards into a smile. She was so beautiful, his Satine, his sparkling  
  
diamond. He had pawned his typewriter and had bought an engagement ring, just a  
  
simple band of gold and silver, pretty in its own way. He hummed, fingering the small  
  
bright circlet, going over their last conversation in his mind.  
  
*"Do you love me Christian?" she had asked almost uncertainly, a tiny frown wrinkling  
  
the pale skin of her forehead. She always needed that assurance, to hear the words come  
  
out of his mouth. He grasped one of her silky hands, so warm in his own, and smiled  
  
gently.  
  
"You know I do Satine. I love you so much. So much." he said, bending forward in to  
  
press his lips onto her own. This kiss deepened, throbbing, stroking, blazing velvet. The  
  
heat between them became intoxicating, dazzling, almost seething from their bodies.  
  
They leaned into each other as their passion ignited, their limbs tangling together, her  
  
hands entwined in his dark hair.  
  
"I love you too." she had whispered. *  
  
Yes, he would give this to her tonight, and they would run away just like they often  
  
talked about in those rare moments when they were alone. The streets were already  
  
darkening as his eyes sought out the bright lights of Le Amore Fou and the spinning mill  
  
of the Moulin Rouge, that always lit the sky with eerie shades of red. He felt an  
  
impossibly strong hand tug him from behind, and pain, numbing pain, burst from the base  
  
of his skull. Something trickled down his back, sticky, warm, *his own blood*, he  
  
realized sickly. His blurring vision saw the gold ring slip from the grasp of his weakening  
  
fingers, and roll away with a tinkle over the grimy cobblestones. Finally, the gold was  
  
enveloped by the black, and he fainted.  
  
The pain had lessened to a dull ache, taunting, it seemed. His hands and feet were tied  
  
down onto each post of the brass bed he was lying on with what looked like sheets. A  
  
fever was already burning on his sweat soaked forehead, making him disoriented. The  
  
room he was in was bare of all other furnishings or windows except for a crude wooden  
  
stool in the corner on which a single lit candelabra rested. The walls, from what he could  
  
see, were whitewashed, and a door was not visible in the dim light. Nothing could be  
  
seen except for blackness, pierced vaguely by a dying, filtered flame from the candles.  
  
His breathing became ragged, heavy with fear, emphasized by the stillness of the room.  
  
Attempting to sit up, he heard the unmistakable creaking of hinges.  
  
"Who's there?" he cried desperately into the darkness, fear fluttering in the base of his  
  
belly like a caged bird. Silence answered, empty and lonely. He swallowed, his heart  
  
beating frantically, almost audible in the quiet of the room. He knew something was  
  
there, he could feel it.  
  
"What do want from me?" he yelled, straining at his bonds desperately, but knowing they  
  
wouldn't loosen. "Why did you bring me here?" His voice sounded high and anguished  
  
even to himself. A figure moved in the shadows, tall and slim, a slender hand with long  
  
tapering fingers lifting the candelabra and pushing the stool closer to where Christian was  
  
lying. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the form, but all he could see was a  
  
vague silhouette.  
  
"Do not be afraid." the creature announced, its voice low and smooth, melodious. "I am  
  
here to give you the choice I never had." it continued almost sadly, the flickering candles  
  
failing to illuminate its body. "Your skull is fractured, and you are at the door of death.  
  
Left alone, you will most certainly die." Christian felt his breath catch in his throat,  
  
disbelief mixed with despair whizzing through his muddled mind. *Die?* he  
  
thought. *Satine....*  
  
"You are the one that did this to me!" he shouted angrily.  
  
"No." the creature said firmly, bowing its head. "It was not I. It was a common thief to  
  
rob you off the few things that you had. I had saved you." Christian shook his head, bile  
  
rising in his throat.  
  
"Save me? SAVE ME? You have not saved me. You have *kidnapped* me." he spit  
  
out, the bed rattling from his attempts to escape  
  
"Shhhh..." the creature whispered. "You are not of sound mind. Fear and pain clouds your  
  
judgment. But you must still make the choice that I offer."  
  
"What offer is this?" Christian asked in a lower voice, deadly quiet.  
  
"You will die, that is a certainty now, but I give you the opportunity to live forever."  
  
Christian began to open his mouth, but the creature lifted a single finger for silence. "Do  
  
not speak so quickly. The choice seems simple now, for you know not the implications of  
  
your decision. You will no longer be yourself, but a being far greater." The creature  
  
finally rose the candelabra to his face and Christian drew back in wonder blended with  
  
fear. This thing's skin was ashen, bloodless, but giving off an unknown iridescence. The  
  
lips were cold, a frosty pink, yet sensual in a way. Its hair, black, fell into its forehead  
  
like an unkempt mop of soot, so dark in color to its skin. But its eyes, its eyes were so  
  
fierce, and yet awe-inspiring. They were hypnotic, burning from the white cinders of the  
  
face like dieing blue flames, almost leaving trails in the darkness. "This is what you will  
  
become." Christian gasped, staring at this creature. His thoughts roamed back to Satine,  
  
Satine so beautiful and alive, then Satine crying when he was dead. When he was dead.  
  
He raised his eyes once again to the thing's face.  
  
"I want to live." 


	3. Chapter Three

Love Within Death Chapter Three By : Celeny  
  
  
  
The creature stepped silently over to Christian's bed, its pallid skin absorbing the yellow glow from the dripping candles so that it radiated a tawny gleam. Christian's glazed eyes drifted over to its slim hands, wrapped daintily around the long slender silver base of the candelabra. Its fingers were covered with the dull white wax that had drizzled down the sterling stem from the dribbling candles, yet it didn't seem to pain the creature at all. Dully horrified, he looked unwaveringly at the ghastly beautiful face.  
  
"What are you?" he whispered. The creature smiled bitterly, sitting gracefully down on the wooden stool and leaning over so that its frame almost touched his. Christian was amazed at this being's lack of body heat, almost instead of warmth, it shedded an icy chill.  
  
"My name is Claude." it said, its voice musical and almost haunting. "And I am a vampire. You made your choice, my dark haired prince." Christian's eyes widened, but before he could gasp Claude buried his long ivory fangs into Christian's neck. He struggled against the hard body at first, the pain in his neck pulsing, but then he fell back among the softness of the pillows, almost unaware that the white lace was being tainted red by his blood. He could feel Claude pulling the life out of him, his blood gurgling in his veins, he could hear Claude's heart pound, hammering in his ears as if it was in his own chest. The sound, like a drum being beat in a lazy rhythm, amplifying and consuming everything in the silence, the deafening silence. Pleasure. Rapture. Yet multiplied by a thousand times. His body was floating, falling, his senses drunk on mixture of heat and darkness. He was still aware of Claude's cool embrace, wrapped in his strong yet fragile arms as his existence was being tugged away. And then it stopped. He was lying amongst the blood soaked pillows again, looking up with an almost childlike innocence at the vampire hovering over him, wiping his blood from the pale down turned lips.  
  
"You must drink, my Christian." Claude hissed, biting into his own wrist and pressing the pooling blood onto Christian's mouth. Christian pulled away in revulsion, but as soon as the first drops leaked onto his tongue he eagerly lapped at the wound, drinking the blood like wine. He sucked zealously, like a baby from its mother, now feeling the life flow back into him, his breathing quicken as his heart throbbed, his body coming alive. His mouth widened and locked onto the cut as he moved closer to Claude, his thirst for the blood devouring his thoughts, hissing like a serpent inside his mind. The blood gave off an unknown warmth as it filled him, and he became glutted on the liquid as he guzzled the crimson fountain spilling from the white skin. Again came the drum, dizzying in its volume, shaking his bones with the heavy vibrations. Soaring, flying, this was completeness, this was love. Finally, through the flurry of emotions, he heard Claude's helpless cries of pain and the wrist being pulled away from his grasp. He instinctively tried to yank it back, but Claude, looking more ashen than normal, shook his head.  
  
"No more." he said raspily, drawing in a shuddering breath. "You must listen to me now Christian."  
  
"Yes.." he answered drowsily, his eyes half lidded from the now inexplicable urge to sleep.  
  
"I can read your thoughts, as you will learn to do in time. But you must listen so that you learn what I am telling you. If you don't, you most certainly will not survive. You are a vampire, immortal now, unable to be killed unless by burning or staking. You must drink from humans, they will give you your life. You cannot step into the sunlight, and you must sleep during the day." He paused, as if not liking the next words he was about to speak. "I must leave you in the evening. The sun is about to rise, you are tired, and need to sleep now.." Christian grasped the cuff of his long sleeved shirt desperately, staring up at him with a pleading expression, but still seeing how different the room looked now, so shiny and fresh with his new eyes.  
  
"No! You cannot leave me so soon. I know nothing of what I am now or-"  
  
"These things you will learn. Is it not enough that I leave you with an immortal life and the rest of the world to be learned and loved in ways naïve mortals never will?" Claude hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. "In the evening young one, my dark haired fledgling vampire." He brushed his icy hand over Christian's face, closing his eyes and resting his fingers in his tousled dark hair.  
  
"I never wanted the whole world, I just wanted..." he said half-heartedly, unable to stay awake any longer, "to live." he finished in an inaudible whisper before slipping into sleep.  
  
Christian woke up as he sensed the sun setting, sitting up in bed with the sheets stiff with his blood. The room, though still cloaked in the same mixture of shadow, was sharper in focus, the colors more pronounced, as if it had taken on another dimension of beauty in the passing of one day. He turned to the empty stool resting by the side of his bed and saw a thin piece of paper balancing on the edge, along with a small velvet box. He delicately picked up the paper and read the gracefully scripted words.  
  
My dear Christian, I have left you my possessions, you will find it in the room directly across from that which you are in now. Perhaps we will meet again one day, you and I. Until then,  
  
Claude  
  
Christian opened the black box and found the silver and gold ring he was to give to Satine nestled among the white satin. It shimmered back at him in the failing light, how happy he had been at that moment, how much more innocent. Something else gleamed at the creamy bottom, the crucifix he had been wearing, he realized with a start. He reached in his now colorless fingers to pull it out and yelped when the metal stung his hand with a sharp pain. The cross fell onto the dusty floorboards with a high tinkle and skitted under the bed. *Vampire* his mind screamed, *unholy*. The full realization of what he had done hit him, and he buried his face in his frosty hands and wept. 


	4. Chapter Four

Love Within Death  
  
Chapter Four  
  
By :  
  
Celeny  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Christian awoke the next night. He could smell the damp, cool, effervescent chatter of people arriving in Monmarte to spend an evening seduced by the rosy garnet lull of the Moulin Rouge. Through the blackness of his room violet light seemed to filter, and with his new fledgling eyes he could see the particles of dust dance through the air, like fairies flitting around each other. Blood. He smelled it, salty and tenuous, a bitter smile in his mind. Throwing away the stiff sheets that covered his body, he realized it was his own mortal blood that had streamed too softly from his throbbing throat. He reached his fingers, pawing, dead wrinkled spiders to the cold hollow of his neck where the marks where, twin puckered mouths that were already healed into two tiny concave valleys.  
  
A mirror. He had to find a mirror. What kind of creature had he made a metamorphosis into, a creature that drinks blood as zealously as it drinks wine? But there was nothing that would reflect, only barren, dirty wooden walls. Thirst. He felt it curling in his throat in a hissing coil, crying for blood, for life. Christian pushed it away.  
  
He remembered the note, the cool, lovingly scripted words that his Maker Claude had left. *My dear Christian, I have left you my possessions, you will find it in the room directly across from that which you are in now.* An outline of a door was hidden in the gloom, to which Christian slowly walked silently over to and turned the brass knob. Darkness was only met with more darkness, which sharpened into a long wooden hallway undefined by any ending. As promised, another door, identical to the first, was cloaked in a black haze. Christian opened the door and stepped inside, greeted by stoic silhouettes that clogged the room like sarcophagi of mummies.  
  
The room's contents were shapeless and covered in blankets that had collected a web of dust. A huge window was shaded by a velvet navy curtain tucked firmly into the window lattice to block sunlight, which Christian pulled down hesitantly. Moonlight spilled through the glass and bled a large golden puddle on the floorboards Instantly the figures sharpened in the mixture of light and shadow, and a handful of moths beat their wings and launched into the air like spirits reaching heavenward at the disturbance. He needed to hunt, to drink. The thirst clawed at him, eating away the lining of his stomach.  
  
Carefully Christian began to remove the sheets, unnaturally soft in his palms. Statues in marble, their faces Botichelli angels, grim, yet serene, sculptures of The Virgin Mary, her head bowed and her arms cradling the baby Jesus, a replica of the famous David by Michelangelo, and paintings of the renaissance, the women's sharp profiles and the men's patient expressions. He stared at the Virgin, pushing the thirst away. Evil, so evil, his mind screamed. Demon. Vampire. The largest shape was a beautiful baby grand piano, chestnut wood that sparkled even in the failing light, and ivory and ebony keys that, when pressed, sounded bold, lyrical tones. Endless furniture, glossy mahogany tables, chairs, desks, two magnificent bed frames, and an array of lamps and other gold, silver, bronze, and sometimes jeweled treasures. The walls were lined with antique bookcases, teeming with leather bound titles. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelias, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dante, Donatello, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and hundreds more.  
  
It was beautiful, this un orderly array of priceless artifacts and wealth. He ran his hands over everything, feeling the sensually hard surface of the different woods, stones, and leathers. Thirst so strong he thought it would drive him mad. Hidden in a corner was a small chest, covered with lace so fine that it felt as delicate as human skin. He lifted the top and gasped at the gathering of precious stones. Rubies and emeralds, round and heavy as birds' eggs, ropes of pearls like clots of milk strung through gold, and diamonds cut so that every facet captured a cornucopia of color. He would have to give these to Satine, but everything other than the diamonds, the sparkling, deceitful diamonds.  
  
Beautiful, everything, yes it was, it was. Beautiful...  
  
Then it was thirst. Thirst that hit again so suddenly it was burning, searing pain in every pore. Thirst. Blood. Humans. He gasped, doubling over with the needle like pinpricks crawling over his skin. His flaying hand knocked over a statue of the Virgin, which shattered against the hard ground, a fragment of her broken face staring up at him sadly, her eyes filled with a mellow despair. Disappointment in her gaze. Vampire. Unholy.  
  
He broke out of the room and stumbled down the dark hallway, his steps loud and clumsy, echoing emptily in the passage. He ran on, hitting the walls as he went as the thirst, oh the relentless thirst, scorched his body. A door was there, at the end of the hall, and his fingers pried it open and he fell onto the balcony outside, wrought iron and chilled by the heavy night air. He leaned over, two stories up, and fell, hitting the cobblestones hard and on his back.  
  
The clomping hooves of a horse tied to a carriage almost hit his head, capable of crushing his skull as easily as a little boy pulling the wings off a butterfly. The horse smelled sweet, of sweat, fear, and exhaustion, but it was the driver that burned in his mind, the driver that reeked of blood and blood and more blood. Unhurt, Christian pulled himself up and onto his knees, panting. The pull was irresistible, the pull to kill and drink until the body was shriveled and dry in his hard palms like an empty chrysalis. He licked his pale lips, feeling his vampire eyeteeth scrape against the soft pink skin and dewy drops of red drip from the tiny cuts. He could stand this no more.  
  
Christian leapt after the carriage, moving so fast he was but a black blur, another shadow in a graveyard of darkness. The air whistled past, stroking his body like tender fingers. He caught the wooden edge and heaved himself onto the outside railing, being careful to make no sound. Inside was a woman, dressed in silk embedded with tiny pearls so small they were but a web of shining tears over the cloth, and long caramel hair that spilled over her sloping shoulders in twirling curls. She was beautiful, but also around her curved neck was a tiny crucifix, twinkling innocently under the colored lights of the street. He continued on to where the driver sat, holding the leather reigns that smelled of the horse in his short-gloved fingers.  
  
Christian sat himself beside the man on the padded brown bench. The man turned, his eyes widening in horror at the brilliantly pale creature before him, but Christian wrapped his arms around the man in a soft embrace and buried his face in the warm skin of his neck. The skin was so hot, the vein throbbing against his parted lips in sporadic beats. He sunk his virgin fangs into the artery, sighing in pleasure at the gush of erotically burning blood engulfing his tongue. Gluttonously he sucked, purring at the pulse of the heart, slowing, slowing, but never stopping. He cradled the body gently, rocking back and forth in the rapturous haze that the boiling liquid instigated, the fiery impassioned heat scalding his throat and settling in a straining calescent ball in his stomach. His breath choked, gurgling, the harsh pants intermingling with the blood as he shuddered in pleasure. So beautiful. Yes.  
  
He carefully dropped the body as the heart stopped, the driver's eyes open and glassy as they stared ceaselessly up at the starry sky. The horse carried on regardless, and Christian dropped from the carriage as silently as he had come. He knew, with a burst of horror, that soon the body would fall into the street, and he would hear the screams of the courtesans who found him, his body a shell drained of all blood. But Monmarte was replete with murders; women killed by jealous lovers, aristocrats shot in fights. This man would only add to an inconsequential series of numbers.  
  
Christian's skin was warmed and glowing from the mortal blood, and in the glossy window of an empty shop he caught his reflection. Black hair teased by the breeze, a mop of dirty soot staining his ashen, glassy skin. Green eyes that burned, tiny smoldering fires so bright they seemed lost ghosts holding lanterns of jade. And black, how the black covered him in a coat only meant for a demon. Beautiful. Inhuman.  
  
He stared at himself torturously, glaring at the creature he had become. Never had he wanted to be evil, to steal life from others to fuel his own. But never had he wanted to die. Never had he wanted to leave Satine alone in the arms of the duke. How he hated himself and what he had done. Christian turned from the window and walked back down the road quietly, to gather all of the jewels left to him and give them to Satine, but everything other than the diamonds, the sparkling, deceitful diamonds. 


End file.
